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Frustrating wait to get Skinny

Skinny’s arrival is tipped to spark a bit of a price war in the prepaid market and the newcomer is already attracting a fair amount of interest based on the volume of chatter on the brand’s Facebook page.

Punters seem keen on Skinny’s offer to send out a free SIM card, but a top theme among Facebook posts has been frustration over a lack of follow-up to confirm the SIM is in the mail. Skinny has now amended its webform acknowledgement page to let signer-uppers know it isn’t sending confirmation emails. Skinny wannabes just need to patiently check their mailboxes for the two-to-seven days it takes for the SIMs to arrive.

The brand’s decision to lock its handsets resulted in some pre-launch controversy last month, with rival 2degrees complaining to the Commerce Commission about the practice. The Commission has yet to complete its investigation following the complaint, but hey, it’s summer holiday season.

To its credit, Skinny has a user-friendly unlocking page on its website explaining why users face a $30 fee if they leave the network within nine months of purchasing a locked phone, and how to submit an online request to unlock the device.

Speaking of the Skinny website, improving its functionality appears to be users’ second biggest demand (behind instant teleportation of SIMs). The brand is aware of this and is promising to launch a revamped site next month with new functionality including the ability to make online top-ups.

Given Skinny’s marketing strategy has been heavily skewed towards social media – not surprisingly given its target youth demographic – it’s interesting to see the brand revealing it is working on plans to zero-rate social media data traffic.

According to one official post, it is currently working on the technicalities involved in zero-rating Facebook traffic, something that will undoubtedly appeal to Skinny’s highly networked but data cost-conscious users.

Would zero-rating social media traffic encourage you to get Skinny? Post your comments below.